


Not Drowning

by Owlix



Series: Managing To Avoid Drowning [1]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, dealing with old trauma, managing to avoid drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlix/pseuds/Owlix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snake was still a hero, of course, but he was a man, too. Living in close quarters with him had quickly made it impossible to idealize him. He was someone who could do the impossible, could destroy a tank single-handedly, shoot down helicopters, and kill people with his bare hands. </p>
<p>But more often than that, he was just a man who left his ash trays overflowing and got grouchy without his endless packs of cigarettes, who hoarded flat piles of cardboard boxes under his bed, who ate too many cups of instant noodles, who complained like a child when he caught a cold, who always forgot to feed the chickens. </p>
<p>A man who woke up in his sleep trying to scream, but the sound wouldn’t come, and he only choked and gasped and reached out, like drowning, and Hal was what he clung to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Drowning

  


Back then, Hal had thought Dave was far too good for him. Too good even to be his friend, let alone anything else. Like some kind of action movie character or someone from a seinin manga, with those hard muscles and hard blue eyes that went surprisingly soft when he let them. It was laughable that a man like Dave even existed, let alone that he...

Things had changed since then. Snake was still a hero, of course, but he was a man, too. Living in close quarters with him had quickly made it impossible to idealize him. He was someone who could do the impossible, could destroy a tank single-handedly, shoot down helicopters, and kill people with his bare hands.

But more often than that, he was just a man who left his ash trays overflowing and got grouchy without his endless packs of cigarettes, who hoarded flat piles of cardboard boxes under his bed, who ate too many cups of instant noodles, who complained like a child when he caught a cold, who always forgot to feed the chickens.

A man who woke up in his sleep trying to scream, but the sound wouldn’t come, and he only choked and gasped and reached out, like drowning, and Hal was what he clung to.

  


Hal wasn’t gay or anything. He’d done some research online and quietly decided that he was bisexual. That sounded better - didn’t bring to mind middle school and years of being kicked and beat and called a fucking faggot.

He still liked women. It was just, he couldn’t be touched by one without feeling _her_ hands on him, without smelling chlorine. Couldn’t sleep next to one without waking up drowning.

****

“Otacon,” Dave said to him once, “your parents really fucked you up. You should, I don’t know. Get therapy or something.”

Hal laughed. “Sure. I’ll go if you will.”

Dave snorted and turned away. “They tried that on me, before,” he said, and Hal knew when. After Zanzibar Land, before Dave had run to Alaska and tried to drink himself to death. “Tried to make me back into the man I’d been before. It didn’t help.” And Dave put a hand on Hal’s shoulder, and didn’t say it, but they both knew what had.

****

It went the same as always with Naomi. She was pretty, and it wasn’t fair that someone should be that pretty and that smart and good with people, all at the same time. And Dave had told him that he wanted Hal to move on, had been telling him that for a long time. Hadn’t let Hal touch him, really touch him, in months. Almost a year.

So Hal tried it, despite the way Naomi’s hands on him made him freeze, the way her slick nails reminded him of all the times he’d been coerced. Went along with it half because he didn’t know how to say no. He felt guilty, the whole time. Guilty about Dave, listening and nearby and so alone, and guilty about his father and E. E., both dead, and both because of his weakness and cowardice. Guilty for everything, but Naomi didn’t seem to notice.

He woke up drowning, and her arms around him made it worse, pulled him deeper and held him under. Somewhere, distant, through the rush of water in his ears, he heard Dave coughing. That pulled him out of it, and he was here, now, again, cold and damp with sweat instead of pool water, with Naomi’s hands on him and not his stepmother’s.

He wept. Wept for Dave and his loneliness, for himself and the parts of him that would always be broken, and for Sunny, who only had the two of them.

Naomi held him but she didn’t understand.

****

He had wept the first time he had confessed everything to Dave, the night after he pulled him half-dead from the Hudson river. He resolved that night to tell him everything, reveal the man he really was, confess the damage he had caused.

Dave had listened. He was a good listener. Maybe that came with being quiet. Hal stumbled through the words, confessing what he’d done with his father’s wife, admitting his weakness.

“Otacon,” Dave said, his hand heavy on Hal’s shoulder, and very strong. “It wasn’t your fault. You were just a kid. What she did to you was sick, but that doesn’t make you sick too.” And his voice was so serious, and sure and so _sincere_ that Hal even believed him for a moment.

But Dave was only saying that because he didn’t know what Hal’s actions had caused. Hal shut his eyes and told him. The words poured out of him, the way they never had before. He told Dave how he’d killed his own father with his weakness. Drove the man to suicide. Nearly killed his sister, too - had been betraying them even as they drowned.

Dave just listened, silent. Then he laughed, one of his grim, rough chuckles. Hal flinched, but Dave only said, “We really do have a lot in common.”

He looked away, and Hal stared.

“I killed my father, too,” Dave said. “Really killed him, though, not like you. It wasn’t your fault, Otacon. No, I...” Dave’s voice grew colder, harder. Distant. “It was war. Him or me, but.” His hand shook, and Hal looked at all their little scars, and laid his own hand, scrawny and pale and smooth, on top of them. Dave’s shaking stilled. “I murdered him. Burned him to death.” He tried for a grin that came out more like a grimace and didn’t last. “But I didn’t cry, like you. It made me feel alive. I was glad to do it. Glad when he died. It meant that I had won.”

And Dave glanced over, while Hal tried to stop sobbing, and said, empty, jealous, “I wish I could cry sober.”

Hal cried for both of them.

  


What shamed Hal the most was that he knew what Dave was doing, and he let him do it anyway. Digging his own grave and laying in it and dying, slow. For his own sake, a little, but mostly for Hal’s and Sunny’s. Easing the pain by leaving slowly, so that by the time death came, he would already be gone.

And Hal was letting him do it. Hal was letting him take the risk and bear the pain, again, _again_ , while Hal stayed safe and watched. How many times had Dave sacrificed himself for the sake of the world and left Hal thinking, “It’s too cruel” and now he did the same for Hal, again, and Hal, the coward, was letting him?

  


Before Dave left on his final mission, Hal helped him smoke one last cigarette. Dave’s hands shook, and he kept dropping it. He wanted it badly enough that he didn’t complain when Hal wordlessly reached over to help. Hal held the cigarette to the man’s lips - the first time that Dave’s lips had touched Hal’s skin in months - and kept it steady while Dave pulled in smoke.

Stupid, trying to get Dave to quit smoking. Hal was already helping Dave kill himself anyway. Was driving him towards it, pushing him to his own death, and they both knew it. May as well help him kill himself this way, too. What did it matter, any more?

And Dave smoked, silent, his strong heavy hand on Hal’s thigh, and together they watched the sun rise over the ocean.

  


Dave survived, of course, even after they’d all given up hope for him. Maybe that was what had drawn Hal to the man in the first place. Hal hated being the survivor, hated living on while those he loved were dead. Everyone he loved died. Everyone but Dave, because Dave was Snake and tougher than a tank. And now...

It would have been kinder if he had just died on the battlefield. If Hal had just let him lay down in the microwave hallway and rest. Better that way than to go by his own hand. But they both know it had to be done, and that he had to do it, and Otacon forced himself to let him.

He should have gone with him. Shouldn’t have let him die alone. But he couldn’t - someone had to stay and be with Sunny - and Dave didn’t want it, anyway.

Before he turned to leave, Dave pulled Hal abruptly close. There had been a time when they had embraced often and easily. That time was gone now, or so Hal had thought, but Dave’s strong arms around him brought it rushing back. Had it always been this easy, this close?

“If you’re there,” Dave growled into his ear, “I don’t think I can do it.”

So Hal nodded and refused to cry and tried to ignore the rush of water in his ears.

  


Dave came back from that, too.

When Hal opened the door to see him standing there, still wearing his suit, his heart dropped. He’d said goodbye. He’d started to make his peace. But Dave hadn’t been able to do it, and he would have to. Someone would have to.

“He was alive.” Dave’s voice shook, breathless. “Otacon. He was alive all along. My father. I didn’t kill him.”

And Hal stared at him for a moment before embracing him, and Dave gave a half-choking huff of breath in Hal’s ear, like up until now he’d been drowning.

It was impossible for Dave’s father to still be alive. Hal had seen the files himself. Impossible, but impossible things happened to Dave. Not Hal though. His father was dead, and his sister, and Dave was dying, and then he would only have Sunny.

Dave was dying, but he wasn’t dead. Alive and close, his heartbeat loud, his breath ragged, smelling of sweat and smoke from someone else’s cigar. Alive, but something more than that. Living.

Dave clung to Hal, and Hal clung back. The rush of water receded and fell still. Behind them, Sunny’s footsteps on the staircase echoed through the Nomad as she hurried to welcome him back home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the people who encouraged me to actually post this - you know who you are :)


End file.
